Racing Again

A smart friend of mine who has a business that uses internet blogging as one of his vehicles told me that the key to a successful blog is to update it regularly.  Well, I have failed miserably on that front lately.  Makes me wonder how many curious readers I have lost.  Onward...

The transition from rando racing to bike racing is complete now.  I have not been on skis since the last week of March.  The weather, as many of you know, has been shit in the mountains lately, at least for cycling.  Lot's of storms and a generally wet flow pattern that refuses to let go.  I was down in Boise recently where things are decidedly different.  It was great racing and training in shorts for a change.  It's gotta change here eventually, right?

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Redemption!

I've been dabbling in ski mountaineering racing for 3 seasons now.  Unless you are supremely talented, the sport takes some time to figure out.  It's true that the winners of the gene pool lottery, the guys who get out of bed with a VO2 max in the 80's are going to have an easier time.  But if you can't get down the descents on tooth picks without stacking heavily or transition smoothly without dropping your skins in the snow, you're going to be playing catch up.  And if you aren't one of the aerobically gifted, you can make up some time on those guys by being better in the other aspects of the game.

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Powderkeg Blow Up

         Jay Beyer photo

The 2009 edition of the Wasatch Powderkeg is now in the books.  It went down last Saturday under blue bird skies and heinous skiing conditions.  The race, which almost didn't happen due to major sponsorship shake ups, was very well attended in its new incarnation.  The course was slightly different but held on mostly familiar terrain as previous additions.

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Real Road Ride

There was a time in my life when I lived and breathed road cycling.  I bought my first road bike in 1985 when I was in the Army stationed in Berlin, Germany.  I had this German friend who worked at the bike shop where I bought the ride and he took me under his wing and taught me everything.  After our rides on the weekends we would sit in his apartment eating croissants and Nutella and pouring over German cycling magazines.  He instilled in me the crazy love for the sport that is so prevalent with cycling fans.

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Sunlight...done!

The weekend of pain is over!  No more laps.  No more nausea.  Really, those are the only two things I dreaded during the event.  Of course, the laps were expected.  The gut issues were not.  Neither were insurmountable problems, however, and both were dealt with as a matter of course.  We had to keep ticking off the laps to stay in the race and we had to keep eating to keep skiing.  By the middle of the night, both were sucking heavily!

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